Trincadura

The decline in military shipbuilding from the nineteenth
century encouraged the use of smaller ships. Gunboats (lanchas
cañoneras) played a very active part in the First Carlist
War. The clinker design of these military launches is widely
known on Spain’s Atlantic coast as “trincadura”, and in the
Basque Country the term was adopted to refer to the vessels
themselves.
With the introduction of traditional fishing launches into the
battle, (which proved superior to the military boats), a new
flush-laid “trincadura” soon developed (despite the apparent
contradiction in terms).
For several decades, this vessel was used for coastal surveillance
and marine rescue. The trincadura, designed for
speed and freed of the restrictions imposed by fishing and
cargo transport, was probably the maximum expression of
maritime technology among smaller vessels in the Basque
Country.